Category Archives: Tony Franklin – Misunderstood Genius

One thing that I can’t ignore from La Tech this past spring was the, eh, resigned attitude of Tony Franklin (that more and more OC’s are admitting) that they are only going to run what they are going to run (if they kids can’t get it after a week, then “fuck it“, they will just throw it out (despite the prideful ego of most OCs that pearl-clutch on their favorite concepts). If they can tie it to a counter, great, if not…they’ll move on. It kind of goes against the theory of “coaching”, but its ultimately about results, eh?

It’s not hard to understand why things didn’t work out so well between Franklin and Tuberville.

According to Franklin, the main problem was a healthy dose of paranoia.

“It was the most unusual place I’ve ever been,” Franklin said of the Auburn program. “No one liked anybody else. There was this deep distrust of everybody. The coaches didn’t trust the administration, the administration didn’t trust each other or the coaches. It was very strange and very unnerving. You would walk down the halls and there would be tension you could just feel.

“No one would speak to you or even look at you. The coaches were all paranoid and didn’t trust anyone in the administration. They all felt like the administration was out to get them and they stressed out over everything that happened. “

That in turn put a huge amount of pressure on Tuberville.

“I told Tommy several times that I was simply astounded by the success that he and those coaches had there given the environment around that program,” Franklin said. “There were so many people putting so much stress on Tommy that I don’t know how they did it.

“Whenever you’re the leader of a team or a company or whatever and you’ve got people putting as much pressure on you as what was placed on Tommy, it trickles down to everyone else. And you could see it in that staff.”

Which may explain this:

Franklin was also troubled by the constant talk about religion within the athletic department. From Tuberville to Jacobs to most of the assistants, the talk of God and prayer never ended.”That’s all they do is pray — and talk about praying and religion,” Franklin said. “It’s a constant thing with them, and it’s just overwhelming at times. A lot of people use religion as a crutch, and I think that’s the case there. Every word coming out of their mouths is something about religion, and most of it is just a joke.

“I don’t want to come off as anti-religion or that I’m not a Christian, but the best people in the world — the ones who do truly great things — they just do good things for people. You don’t know most of the time if they’re Muslim or Christian or anything else, because they never talk about it. But it was constant with them, and it was uncomfortable sometimes. When you talk about your religion so much, it comes off as fake or phony. That’s the way I think of several of those people (at Auburn) as fake.”

Fun times, in other words. For such a smart guy, Franklin’s decision to take the job comes off as a pretty dumb one in hindsight, as even he admits.

In fact, Franklin is angrier with himself, saying he was seduced by the money and allowed his ego to get the best of him instead of “using common sense.” He also downplayed the way he was treated and the effect it had on him.

“It just wasn’t the right move for any of us — it was a mistake by all of us,” Franklin said…

I love conspiracy talk, especially in college football. Crooked refs, conference commissioners with agendas, head coaches’ secret plans to do something totally against their own vested interests – it’s all great. Even though I don’t believe a word of it, it’s always fun to get some insight into how certain unbalanced parts of certain fan bases tend to… well, think may not exactly be the operative term here… let’s go with “internalize visual data which does not accord with their accepted world view”.

So, in that light, I present to you a viral e-mail that’s making the rounds on the Plains and was forwarded to me today. I doubt it all, but it’s a hilarious read nonetheless.

from a player in my lab…i had befriended one of the senior lineman…he was responsible for signaling in plays…he said that this past week was the hardest preparation week they have had all year…the reason…all of the signs that are used had to be changed…apparantly after the utm game, one of the utm coaches came up to tubbs and told him that his signs had been known by every team he’s played since franklin left…not only that, but mark richt called tubbs the week before the uga game (btw mark richt may be my new favorite coach because of this) and told tubberville it was in his best interest to change all of his signs because he knew all of them…wonder why we started going to a huddle now???…from everything i gather, coach tony franklin put those bad boys out there for the world to know…it can be traced back to arkansas is what coach richt said…so for the past however many weeks, every team we played either knew our signs, or had the opportunity to know them…i’m not saying that that’s an excuse for our offensive woes, but it could explain how we looked so predictable and how kodi makes a majority of his completions after the play has broken down…i knew franklin was a snake, but if this is true, i hope he never coaches again…i hope he has to go door to door selling his books and video’s…he’s dead to me…

Two questions about this: (1) Didn’t Auburn’s offense suck before Franklin was let go? (2) Richt couldn’t wait until after the game to let Tuberville know? Sheesh.

UPDATE:Jeebus. Maybe we’re supposed to detect the faint whiff of smoke from this after all. Jerry at The Joe Cribbs Car Wash links to this article where Tubby kind of hints around the edges about… something:

… in football, having your signs stolen shouldn’t really be an issue. But it’s one of the numerous reasons coach Tommy Tuberville ditched the arm-flailing method of communication brought to the Tigers by Tony Franklin for the old-fashioned huddle technique for Saturday’s game against Georgia.

“You just take too many things for granted that if you’re signaling and people are seeing what you’re doing,” Tuberville said. “When you’re huddling, only 11 people in that huddle know what you’re going to do.”

Tuberville couldn’t pinpoint any examples of supposed sign-stealing.

“As coaches, you’re always wondering why are they slanting this way or doing that,” Tuberville said. “It’s probably not happening, but it gives you peace of mind for your players and coaches.”

Quote Of The Day

“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15